be advantageous to, be beneficial to, be of advantage to, be to the advantage of, profit, do good to, be of service to, serve, be useful to, be of use to, be helpful to, be of help to, help, aid, assist, be of assistance to;

Origin

The source of benefit is Latin benefactum, ‘a good deed’, and that was the original meaning in English, in the late Middle Ages. The ordinary modern sense is recorded from the early 16th century. To give someone the benefit of the doubt originally meant to give a verdict of not guilty when the evidence was not conclusive.

Men and women living together and having sexual relations ‘without benefit of clergy,’ as the old phrasing goes, became not merely an accepted lifestyle, but the dominant lifestyle in the under-30 demographic within the past few years.

She generally portrayed a successful career woman pursued by a chauvinist (usually Rock Hudson), to whom she eventually decides to give herself without benefit of clergy.

Dedicating and consecrating, commemorating and celebrating - all these can be done ‘without benefit of clergy.’